Expression of telomere repeat binding factor 1 and TRF2 in Alzheimer's disease and correlation with clinical parameters.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to investigate the expression of serum telomere repeat binding factor 1 (TRF1) and TRF2 in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their correlation with clinicopathological features.

METHODS: Fifty AD subjects and 50 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to determine the expression of TRF1 and TRF2 in the peripheral blood plasma. Correlation analysis was used to evaluate the correlation between the protein expression and AD clinical parameters.

RESULTS: The expression of TRF1 in peripheral blood serum of AD patients was significantly higher than that of the control group (t = 5.533, P < 0.01) and TRF2 was lower than the control group (t = 2.627, P = 0.010). The expression of TRF1 was positively correlated with the history of coronary heart disease (Spearman's r = 0.298，P = 0.035). The expression of TRF1 and TRF2 was positively correlated with age (Pearson's r1 = 0.830，P1 < 0.01；Pearson's r2 = 0.942，P2 < 0.01), BMI (Pearson's r1 = 0.791，P1 < 0.01；Pearson's r2 = 0.941，P2 < 0.01), Aβ42 (Pearson's r1 = 0.765，P1 < 0.01；Pearson's r2 = 0.926，P2 < 0.01) and Tau protein (Pearson's r1 = 0.648，P1 < 0.01；Pearson's r2 = 0.691，P2 < 0.01) in blood serum of AD patients. However, there was no significant difference between both proteins expression and the history of hypertension, diabetes or stroke.

CONCLUSION: TRF1 and TRF2 may be both specific to peripheral blood serum of AD, and may be related to the development of AD.